Quote:
We inhabit two worlds, one of which we assign to reality and the other to dreams. Our lives are spent half awake and half asleep, adrift in realms of reason and unreason. The boundary between these realms, for the artist, is often deliberately blurred, nebulous, ambiguous. Yet our creative imagination holds the ticket that allows us to travel between these two states and permits mysterious goods to be imported and exported.
I find this very much to my own experience and also what the myth of Orpheus teaches us about musicians. Musicians inhabit two worlds and Orpheus, as the quintessential musician, descends from our world into Hates (the underworld) to bring up his love Eurydice. He fails to bring Eurydice back to this world and she remains a shade in the underworld. What this says is musicians (artists) can only give us a representation of beauty -- a shade -- and not the real thing; they can only give us an imitation, something removed from the reality of beauty. Still, like Orpheus, they are compelled to go back into the underworld (perhaps representing their subconscious) and try to retrieve the thing they most desperately love. This usually ends in a tragic life because this world without beauty is unbearable and, like drug addicts, they want to go back and relive that first experience of consuming love. Orpheus died tragically at the hands to the Bacchi and his body was ripped apart and thrown into the Aegean Sea. This is almost suggestive of schizophrenia.
I think Bill paints a very beautiful picture and imagination is truly the ticket to ride. I am most curious of his
Orpheus in Ultraland CD to hear how he sees Orpheus. In today's world we think we are so sophisticated with our scientific jargon, especially since the ancient Greeks didn't have words like "subconscious," etc. But, to my mind, the Greeks were still able to describe the character or "archetype" of a person -- in this case a musician -- through a story or myth. There was a wisdom or knowledge that was meant to be conferred. If you become like Orpheus and, through pride of your art, think that you can transgress the gods (or infinitely charm them) -- tragedy will befall you. This, in an unromantic way, tells me art is not everything (or even the highest thing) and we have to be aware and in control of our emotions -- that they don't run away with us through art.
In Plato, Orpheus was described as a coward: if he truly loved Eurydice he would have stayed with her in the underworld. It is one of the greatest mysteries why Orpheus looked back at her just before arriving back to this world. It was as if his backward glance froze him in time -- in other words, the past was what he had to look forward to in his future. He never developed as a character. Still there is something noble about him and only few others heroes were able to conquer death (able to return from Hates). In the end, Love does conquer Death (if we believe Christianity and Cocteau), and though we have one foot in this world and one foot in the grave, imagination allows us a sneak peak of what's in store...